The Italian Matchmaker(89)

Rosa followed at a safe distance. Her nerves were alert, ready to leap into the undergrowth should he turn around, but he walked on as if in a trance. It seemed that nothing could distract him from his purpose.

At last he disappeared into the trees. Rosa crept behind a large bush and waited. She heard the scuffle of footsteps around the folly, as if he were looking through the windows to check no one was in there. There was the sound of a key in the lock. She caught her breath, the excitement expanding in her chest. This was her chance to inject her life with a little adventure. After all, Valentina had made her own excitement.

She could see the warm glow of candlelight around the edges of the shutters, slipping into the darkness to expose the trespasser. So, there was an intruder after all, and he wasn’t a ghost. But who was he and why was he there? Her pulse throbbing in her temples, she put her fingers on the handle and opened the door.

Cosima slept fitfully, her grief as constant a companion as the memory of her dead son. By day, Luca gave her courage and hope, but by night she was flooded with despair – the sense of falling into an abyss. Luca had tossed her a lifeline, but where would he take her? She couldn’t leave Francesco. Nothing could take her away from Incantellaria, where all her memories lay imbedded in the soil. She would live there until the day she died, with or without Luca.

As she slipped into a deep sleep, a profound calm released her from the random ramblings of her mind. She was surrounded by whiteness and in that heavenly light she felt the presence of her son. He appeared before her as he had been in life – his eyes wide and smiling, his skin glossy brown, his cheeks the colour of the most perfect sunrise. He burrowed into her body and she wrapped her arms around him. She smelt the milky vanilla of his hair, felt his smooth skin against her lips, the warmth of his body against hers, and for the first time in three years she felt complete.

Finally, Francesco drew away. He looked at her with the loving eyes of a wise old man. ‘You have to go back.’

‘Don’t make me go!’

‘You must. It’s not your time.’

‘But I want to stay with you,’ she pleaded.

He smiled as if the idea of them being apart was absurd. ‘You know I’m always with you.’

‘But I can’t see you!’

‘Trust, Mamma.’ He slowly began to fade. ‘Trust.’

She reached out to him through the whiteness. ‘I love you, Francesco. Don’t leave me. I can’t live without you. Don’t leave me! Please, come back!’

‘It’s all right, darling. You’re having a nightmare.’ Alba was leaning over her in her white nightdress. She looked around in panic. Francesco had gone. Alba stroked her head. ‘It’s okay. You’re awake now.’

‘I don’t want to wake up.’ She closed her eyes, willing herself to return to that strange white Heaven.

‘It was a dream,’ Alba reassured her.

‘No. It was real. He was here. I could feel him, smell him. He was real!’ She began to cry. Alba turned on the light and Cosima winced. ‘Turn it off!’ Alba ignored her and sat on the bed.

‘It was Francesco in spirit.’ Cosima gripped Alba’s shoulders and opened her eyes wide. ‘Luca said there was nothing in the world that would enable me to hold him. But he under-estimated my son. Francesco found a way.’

Alba turned off the light and left Cosima to sleep. The older she got the more convinced she became that the spirit world was ever-present. She remembered the strong sense of Valentina’s ghost in that very house when she had arrived all those years ago, and how she had moved on when Immacolata had finally let her go.

She climbed back into bed beside Panfilo, who had slept through his niece’s plaintive cries, and lay down. Her mind jumped from thought to thought, willing herself to drift off again. Suddenly she heard the sound of humming outside. It could have been the whistle of the wind, or an owl, but it grew louder as the sound approached the house. Intrigued, she got out of bed and moved over to the window. There, walking with a bounce in her step, was Rosa. Alba was shocked. Her first thought was for Eugenio. If he found his wife weaving her way back home in the early hours of the morning, there’d be the most monumental row. She slipped on her dressing-gown and hurried downstairs, catching Rosa as she crept in through the side door like a burglar. ‘Where in God’s name have you been?’ Alba demanded, hands on hips, her face pale in the moonlight that shone through the kitchen windows.

‘For a walk.’

‘At this hour of the night?’

‘It’s my favourite hour.’